News/Commentary

Ex-CIA Moscow station chief explains decision not to sign laptop ‘disinformation’ letter: ‘No evidence’

April 29, 2023 | | Print Article

Former CIA Moscow station chief, Daniel Hoffman, revealed on Friday exactly why he refused to sign the now-infamous Hunter Biden laptop “disinfo” letter that so many other intelligence officials put their Hancocks to in attempting to discredit the story.

(Video Credit: Fox News)

Hoffman told Fox News that he didn’t sign the letter attacking the New York Post’s explosive story on the laptop because he claims there was no credible evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved.

The letter was signed by 51 top US intelligence officials on Oct. 18, 2020, and has come back to haunt those leaders because its premise has since been discredited.

“[A]t first glance, it seemed natural to lay the blame at the Kremlin’s doorstep,” Hoffman remarked in an interview on “America Reports.”

“Remember, Vladimir Putin is in the Kremlin and he’s well-known for cloak-and-dagger espionage operations. But at the same time, there was no evidence. And the letter noted there was no evidence,” he added.

Hoffman contended that the basis and arguments in the speculative letter were “convoluted” and he felt they would need to be scrutinized by an investigatory agency such as the FBI before being considered credible. However, that was not done and intel officials are now being castigated for it.

https://twitter.com/alx/status/1650679279972229120

“It was not up to us to speculate. So I didn’t sign the letter. I typically don’t put my name to other people’s words,” he bluntly noted.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) revealed that former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell testified before his panel that he drafted the letter and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the “impetus” behind the attempt to discredit the New York Post’s bombshell story.

Hoffman contended that when Morell presented him with the letter he simply didn’t have the time at that point to ask Morell “what the point was about the letter.” His wife was battling cancer at the time and all of his attention was on her during those final days before she passed.

“So I just left it and didn’t sign the letter and didn’t respond,” he recounted.

https://twitter.com/alx/status/1649221650208923654

The letter was signed by a number of high-profile individuals including Bush-era CIA Director Michael Hayden, Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper, former CIA Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash, and former National Intelligence Council Chair Thomas Finger.

Standard procedure in such a matter would have dictated that Hoffman meet with Morell to “hash out all the evidence that we had” before signing the letter.

“Then Michael would draw analytical conclusions with some level of confidence – low, medium, or high – and bring it to the White House. We didn’t have that debate about this laptop issue. We weren’t invited to debate it,” he recalled.

Hoffman went on to post that some of the officials who signed the letter might not have known that Morell had discussed the matter with the Biden campaign beforehand.

“The part that I didn’t know – and I’m assuming that my former colleagues who signed the letter probably didn’t know either – was that Michael Morell had discussed the laptop issue with then-campaign adviser Tony Blinken,” he asserted.

He pointed out that there was a “straight line” from the letter that was supported by Blinken and presented by Morell to Biden’s comments during that NBC debate.

Some conservatives, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), made remarks in Congress about the matter, claiming that as many as 53% of people who were made aware of the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop would have changed their vote in 2020, which made the issue pivotal in the outcome of the election according to Fox News.

The letter signed by the intel officials was published by Politico on Oct. 19, 2020. President Biden cited it during his Oct. 22, 2020. debate against former President Trump while trying to distract from his potential involvement in overseas influence-peddling schemes. He falsely claimed the New York Post had reported on “a Russian plant.”

The Hunter Biden laptop was abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. At the time, Hunter Biden was addicted to crack cocaine. It potentially links President Biden to his son and brother Jim Biden’s foreign influence-peddling schemes.

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